They track steps, likes and the micro-genres Spotify says they discovered. Gen Z’ers live by data. When should a photo be posted for maximum engagement? Was that enough movement this week? What song fits the moment? A Z is likely to check their analytics first. Why? Because data provides context. It answers the all-important question: “Compared to what?”
There’s one data set meant to prove their competence to future employers and post-graduate admissions officers that offers zero context: their university transcripts.
An A in quantum mechanics looks identical to an A in underwater basket weaving. For a generation obsessed with analytics, a grade-point average without reference points is like a car without a gas gauge; you don’t know how far it can take you.
That disconnect is what motivated student body presidents from six Southern universities, representing 200,000 college students, to petition President Trump last month: “How can our country educate the next generation of Americans without the means to measure that education? Why would an employer look at a college transcript when it provides no reference point?”
Translation: University transcripts are meaningless, and students are starting to speak out.
The letter, posted on Instagram and X, from the Student Body Presidents of Baylor, Texas A&M, Auburn, Vanderbilt, Kentucky and Arkansas, proposes a simple remedy: an executive order requiring Title IV universities to list the median or average grade for each class on student transcripts. In their words, “Higher education commits academic dishonesty by treating a hard-earned A in a challenging course the same as an easy A in a remedial class.”
This single addition to transcripts could dramatically reshape incentives. Students, employers and post-graduate admissions offices would gain a benchmark to assess performance. And it would begin to expose the epidemic of grade inflation.
Consider the numbers. During the Vietnam era, only 15 percent of college grades were A’s. By 2019, 75 percent of all grades were A’s or B’s. This isn’t academic progress; it’s education devaluation. Students aren’t getting smarter; classes are getting easier. Correcting the incentive structure would reward students who take challenging courses. Over time, this trend might even reverse.
Employers are realizing the declining value of an undergraduate education. As of January 2024, fewer than one in five job postings on Indeed required a college degree. Meanwhile, 36 percent of university students show no significant improvements in learning over four years. Why would employers trust a transcript that tells them nothing? Increasingly, they do not.
Once a leading indicator of educational success, today, less than 40 percent of recruiters screen graduates by GPA. While nearly 90 percent indicate they are looking for students with strong problem-solving skills, transcripts are no longer a reliable signifier.
Students from elite families have options. They can rely on unpaid internships, soft factors like volunteer hours, and exclusive personal connections. First-generation and low-income students often can’t. However, they can perform. Transparent transcripts would help employers identify talented students without the usually prohibitively high cost of internships and elite networks. Graduate schools that are increasingly reliant on test scores (which are expensive to take and prepare for) may even be able to lean on these “honest” transcripts as alternative measurements of talent.
Students have responded rationally to a broken system. Knowing that less-than-perfect GPAs can cost them jobs or scholarships, they have resorted to course-shopping for easier grades. The courageous few who attempt more challenging classes are punished by the educational system, which is meant to reward academic inquiry. A transcript annotated with medians would account for differences in course difficulty and benefit students who choose more challenging classes. And it would help employers and graduate schools ID standout talent.
The student’s idea does not impose complicated mandates on universities. Colleges commonly publish this data already — Texas A&M, for example. Packaging is important. For it to work, it must be accessible and convenient for quick comparison.
Dartmouth College has included the median grade given in the class on students’ transcripts since 1994. However, this creates a collective action problem. If only a few schools provide median grades on transcripts, their students risk being unfairly judged next to peers, when all A’s look the same.
Gen Z expects heat maps, medians and benchmarks everywhere, including the document that defines their academic worth. Adding one line of context will not cure every ill in higher education, but it will transform the transcript from Monopoly money into a usable credential.
For a generation obsessed with analytics, that upgrade is long overdue.